Manchester, New Hampshire

Hometown of Danielle St. Jean

Hooksett, NH

Hooksett, NH is just north of Manchester and it is where I grew up. It's a small town of around 12,000
residents. It's a quiet little town with no real town center, which is unusual for a New England town. There is the
Hooksett Village, seen in this photo taken from the Pinnacle, a hill in Hooksett. The Hooksett village used to be
more of a center, where the town hall used to be located. Now the town hall has moved to a new location, so there's
not much going on in the Village anymore.

What's in a Name?

While no one is entirely certain where the name Hooksett comes from, apparently it's quite an old name.
Very early in colonial times while New Hampshire was still a province, what is now Hooksett was part
of a larger township called Chester. As far back as 1719, provincial papers mention Isle au Hooksett and
Isle au Hooksett Falls. It wasn't until 1768 that Hooksett was incorporated as its own township, but clearly
the name Hooksett had been in use for a good 50 years.

I always assumed that the name "Hooksett" had something to do with the bend in the Merrimack River, where
the Hooksett Village is located. It looks like a hook! Former LINGUIST Lister Hunter Lockwood suggested that the
name could have been a sort of pidgin formation, because the Pennacook of the region were speaking
a form of Algonquian, and according to the Wikipedia page for Massachusett's name,
-s- is a diminutive and -et is a locative suffix. So, "Hooksett" could mean something like
"little place where there's a hook." This is all spectualation though, because I can't find anything out
there to confirm it...

Robie's Country Store

One place worth visiting in the Hooksett Village is Robie's Country Store. The Robie family owned and
operated this general store from 1887 to 1997. After 1997, its fate has been uncertain until it was
purchased and run as it always had been. In 2000 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
It's got all everything that you'd expect a general store to have: candy, local sodas, a small deli, and more.
What's really great about Robie's though, is that it's a frequent stop for presidential candidates. It's walls are
covered with presidential memorbilia from as far back as the 1950s!